Three weeks before the show, Koizumi was a largely unknown Tokyo-based costume designer who received an Instagram DM from Katie Grand — the editor of LOVE magazine and the stylist for Marc Jacobs’ runways. It was then that the two decided to put on a NYFW show with 26 looks. “It’s half archive and half new collection,” Koizumi explained to British Vogue, to ease some of the disbelief of many. And like a fashion fairy godmother, Grand helped round up a production dream team of Guido Palau, Pat McGrath, Jin Soon, Tabitha Simmons and Anita Bitton, and then filled a front row with the industry’s most important editors.

If social media is any metric of success, Tomo Koizumi’s Instagram account surged from 2,000 followers (two months ago) to 29K at the time of writing. His geometrically-constructed pieces, or “ruffle armor for the girls” as he calls them, are mostly hand-sewn and inspired by everything from Capucci to abstract paintings, as well as the idea of a woman that can be both cute and strong, like the manga heroine Sailor Moon. Koizumi’s collection was applauded for giving NYFW’s commercial-leaning status a boost of haute couture appeal. It gave the designer scene a bright-eyed vision of the future, and it treated everyone to some much-needed escapism from the gloom and doom of reality.